


Now, first of all, if you don't mind, I'll make the rules.

by thequeernessofsupers (wearethewitches)



Series: author's favourites [10]
Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Alex Danvers-centric, Alien Technology, Banter, Cameos, Dimension Travel, Dubious Science, F/F, For Science!, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Minor Astra/Alex Danvers, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-11
Updated: 2017-12-11
Packaged: 2019-02-13 15:35:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12987108
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wearethewitches/pseuds/thequeernessofsupers
Summary: "Rules indeed! Ha-ha-ha! Why, she only wants rules so she can break 'em!" - the Sword in the Stone (1963)-When the DEO gets its hands on an alien device of unknown origins, Winn and Alex are the ones to muck about, experimenting and building. The result: Alex Danvers, Time-Space Dimension Traveller extraordinaire.





	1. Chapter 1

“Purple plug into port sixteen-two and…we’re off,” Alex takes away her hands, Winn watching the machine closely as he powers it on. It hums, turning a dim yellow before the archway by the wall sparks, a part in the other side exploding.

“Shit-”

“Turn it off,” Alex orders, grabbing the fire extinguisher, letting it rip as she sees a small flame. White flies out the nozzle as Winn swears under his breath.

“What went wrong? We did everything in order and the coordinates had the decimal point in the right place this time!” Winn runs a hand through his head before pausing. “Oh. _Oh…_ ”

“What?”

“Time!” Winn exclaims as Alex finishes putting out the fire, turning to her lab partner. “So, this engine, we know it can teleport things through space. Minnie the Rat will never be the same again.”

“May her successors be braver,” Alex adds.

“Agreed.” Winn nods hurriedly, before rushing over to the whiteboard full of notes on the device’s insides. “We took the original box apart and…what? We knew that the second console was some sort of stuck clock showing the present time in Greenwich Mean and it wouldn’t _stop_ doing that. We couldn’t do anything with it and we didn’t know what it _was_. But why would a teleporter need a clock unless…”

“Time,” Alex repeats, eyes widening. “We reverse-engineered a broken space-time teleporter, not just a teleporter.”

Winn grins, putting his hand out for a fist-bump, which Alex returns before he goes to the terminal, turning to the computer programming. He scrolls through it, pointing out the anomalous coding where they’d found an error in the original artefact and subsequently decided to cordon off in the larger version.

“We need to fix this.”

“How though?” Alex leans over, scanning it.

“If we think of it like this,” Winn starts, crossing his arms, “the current clock, in sync with real time, is still running. If the teleporter has the capacity for time travelling along with space travel, it needs to know when it’s from.”

“Where and when home base is,” Alex clarifies, spotting something in the code. Winn shrugs as Alex tentatively highlights a bit of code, circling it with a pen overlay. “That. I don’t think we can change this or should.”

“I agree,” Winn nods, before they grab some chairs, sitting down and going over it, pinging ideas off each other.

A couple of hours later, J’onn comes in to check up on them. “Hey.”

“Hey,” Alex smiles at him briefly. “What’s up?”

J’onn chuckles. “What’s up is the fact that you should have gone home half an hour ago – both of you. Have you even eaten?”

Alex and Winn exchange a guilty expression, before Alex feels a twinge from her stomach. _I’m starving_ , Alex thinks, J’onn picking up her surface thoughts with a chuckle.

“Go home, agents. All this will still be waiting for you when you get back.”

“It’d better,” Winn says, getting up. “We had a break-through.”

“Oh?” J’onn raises an eyebrow.

“Yeah,” Alex confirms, leaning down to grab her shoes, which she’d kicked off at some point. She speaks as she pulls them on, tying her laces. “We think that it can send things through time, too.”

“Time travel…” J’onn mutters, brow furrowing. “Are you sure?”

“Define sure,” Winn replies.

* * *

When Alex gets home that night, coding is swimming in front of her eyes, but her brain isn’t taking any of it in. She drops into bed after eating a boxed sweet potato salad from her fridge, belatedly thinking her bed is too cold before realising that it’s cold because there’s no-one’s to warm it for her anymore.

Bathroom light left on and shining on her face, Alex forgets about space-time teleportation devices for a minute, thinking of _her_. Red hair and that _damned_ white streak, the most horrifying fight for her life and jamming a glowing green kryptonite sword through her back.

Alex smells the pillow she doesn’t sleep on, but Eliza washed it when she came over to Alex’s apartment to spend the week, looking after both of her daughters in their shared, but different grief. Flower-fresh fills her senses instead of _Astra_.

“I miss you,” she says, remembering being there in bed with her, arm curling around her waist and their lips colliding. Astra had been so warm and solid and Alex _misses_ her. “Could have been…”

 _I love…I love you both,_ Astra had said, as she was dying in Kara’s arms, mouth open in a silent gasp of pain. Her eyes had flickered between them both but she’d locked in on Kara. Alex doesn’t blame her, she never could blame her for that. Kara is _so_ special and Alex would look at Kara too, when she was dying.

“I miss you,” Alex says again to empty air, thinking of Astra’s pod in the sky, sent up into the sun to be burned to ashes. She breathes in the flower-fresh pillow, trying and failing not to cry as her grief pounds at her heart.

The next morning when she wakes to the blaring of her alarm, it doesn’t take her long to realise her positioning is weird, laying practically horizontal in bed on Astra’s pillow. _I’ve got to get to work,_ she thinks at the pillow, looking at it for a few moments before kissing it once, feeling like it’s not enough. It isn’t enough.

Alex wonders if her grief will just… _go away_ and stop making her life seem so depressing.

Her phone swooshes. Grateful for the distraction, Alex picks it up, seeing a reminder she set for herself to pick up Vasquez’s cat for her at seven from the vet. Groaning, Alex gets out of bed, going through her morning routine, running on her treadmill for an hour rather than going to the gym before work.

After she’s showered and dressed, Alex goes to pick up Vasquez’s cat. The vet warily hands over the cat basket and his meds, murmuring _don’t wake this hell-beast_. Alex, not impressed, takes the bag and plastic cat-container, checking on Morrissey through the grate once she’s in her car.

“How was your surgery, big guy?” Alex questions, wincing at the big patch of shaved hair on his back. Morrissey isn’t her favourite animal – Alex has scars from the Maine Coon Vasquez likes to call her _little kitty_ – but back surgery isn’t nice, even on the fancy pain meds Vasquez is paying for.

From how the butterfly stitches are holding his healing skin together, Alex guesses the vets did an alright-enough job, though. “Let’s get you back to your mom,” Alex says, before starting the car and driving to Vasquez’s apartment.

When she arrives, an unfamiliar Latina woman in pyjamas holding back a ginormous black Newfoundland opens the door.

“You got the hell-cat?” she questions, before tugging at the dogs collar. “McCartney, get _back_ , fucking god – just a minute.” The woman shuts the door and Alex waits as she wrangles her dog, faintly relieved that it doesn’t take too long. “Sorry.”

“It’s no trouble,” Alex says, holding out the bag of pain meds. “Morrissey’s medication. Instructions are inside, but the vet said to mix two sachets in with his food. I’m Alex, by the way, Alex Danvers. I work with Vasquez.”

“Maggie. Maggie Sawyer – Susie’s girlfriend.” Maggie introduces herself, before taking the cat-box. “Thanks. Oh, Susie phoned me last night. She said to thank you for this and to give you…” Maggie reaches into her back-pocket, taking out a wad of cash as she precariously balances the bottom of the cat box on her bent knee. “This. Said she owed you.”

“Ahh…” Alex smiles smugly, counting out the bills. “Awesome. She bet more than she could buy last game night.”

“Susie _did_ say something like that,” Maggie chuckles, before tilting her head back. “You want a coffee?”

“I’ve got to get to work,” Alex says apologetically. “Maybe another time.”

“Cool. Thanks again for picking up Morrissey,” Maggie nods goodbye, before shutting the door. Alex returns to her car, sighing at the sight of cat-hair on the seat the box had been on before simply driving to work.

* * *

“I think I’ve got it,” Winn says around noon, before going right over to the terminal and starting to adjust the coding. Alex bolts up, watching the changes as they happen, not quite seeing where he’s going until he goes to a different part of the programming to add in a new function.

“Winn, let it be known that _I_ was the one who recruited you from website design and got you working on time travel,” Alex stands up straight, patting his shoulder as another techie comes over, pronouncing the repairs to be finished. Alex glances at them before looking to the arch, already thinking up a design to retrofit into the mechanics.

“Thanks. Think you can stay our lackeys a bit longer rather than go off on break?”

“Do you need anything else?” they question.

Alex starts to think about it, but before she can even come up with the first thing she’d need, Winn rattles off a list of items. The techie leaves to fetch everything, Alex raising an eyebrow in Winn’s direction.

“What?” he questions when he sees her look. “I’ve been thinking about this all night! All week!”

“…fine,” Alex looks away, at the arch. “When and where do we go first, then?”

“If we set up a room that can only be opened from the inside-” Winn starts.

“We’ve got one of those,” Alex says. “It’s called a bunker. I’ll go ask the Director about using it if you deal with the rest of the installation here.”

“As long as you get me a sandwich,” Winn bargains, causing Alex to smirk and Winn to subsequently add, “one I actually _like_.”

* * *

Later that evening, they power it all up again, like they did yesterday. Lucy looks on through the glass, talking to J’onn as she does and there’s a part of Alex that still thinks it’s unfair that J’onn isn’t Director – but still, she’s glad Lucy’s in charge, rather than someone like her father.

As Winn starts the arch up, the yellow light appears again, but this time instead of sparking up the arch, it hums and the moving pieces start to move, pumping and turning. Then, yellow lightning starts to flash across, back and forth.

“Woah!” Alex steps back, unlike the techies, who don’t seem to have any self-preservation at all as they step forwards, releasing the three test-rats through the portal, one by one. Each time one goes through, the lights in the base dim, immediately making Alex think _there’s not enough power wired into the machine._

“Prepare for arch shutdown,” Winn calls, the techies stepping back as he begins the shutdown sequence. Almost immediately, the yellow lightning disappears and then all that’s left is the loud humming and the movement. Winn presses a few buttons. “Okay, something’s gone wrong.”

Alex looks at the computer, alarmed at the _SHUTDOWN COMPLETE_ message when very clearly, the arch is still active.

“What’s going on?” Lucy asks through the speaker.

“I don’t know,” Winn calls. “It won’t turn off!”

“Let’s cut the power,” Alex says as she catches sight of the fluid in the hydraulics of the arch – the unknown fluid they found in the original device that they’d found expanded in on itself if put in contact with magnesium, creating more and more fluid until the magnesium was removed – bubbling.

Stepping closer, Alex eyes the visible fluid. _One day, we’ll have a casing over this,_ she thinks, happy for now that they don’t. The fluids simmer in the hydraulics, still moving up and down and around. Grabbing a plastic stick from a nearby table, Alex reaches out to the archway, passing the stick through the space.

Immediately, the end of the stick disappears.

“Mark a new rat with a bright colour,” she orders the nearest techie, taking the stick away from the arch and finding the disappeared end melted and dripping. “Get me a tray for this.”

A new rat is procured and the stick taken away. Alex watches the techie mark it with pink, unlike the green, blue and brown markers on the other rats, already sent through. Once it’s coloured, it’s released. Alex is provided with a new plastic stick to wave through the arch. Like the last stick, it disappears and then returns melting when removed.

“Can we check the bunker, now?” Winn asks.

Alex looks up from her melted plastic stick.

“Sure.”

* * *

The bunker is obviously not un-openable from the outside. However, Alex suggested it because if they had a living, human time-traveller, they would be able to lock it until the potential paradox passed.

When they open the door from the outside, the small entrance hall, already emptied for their experiment, has three live rats sleeping in the corner. It also has a melted pile of white plastic and the dry, crispy remains of rat #4.

“Block the arch off,” J’onn orders. “Make sure no living creature can get anywhere near it.”

“It’s a power problem, I think,” Alex says when they return to the lab, the techies putting yellow tape on the floor and putting up physical markers in the form of tall orange flags. “The first three rats haven’t woken up yet and according to the techies, there’s no sign of them having moved anywhere except towards the corner. The arch must have sucked some form of… _energy_ out of them to work.”

“And because we shut down part of the machine,” Winn snaps his fingers, “it needed to find the energy to work. See: melted plastic and the dead rat number four.”

“So,” Lucy glances at the arch, “we basically have to either leave a death trap on or leave a fully-powered time machine on.”

“That’s a hell of a choice,” J’onn shakes his head, hands on his hips. “Frankly, Director, thinking about the implications of leaving a time machine on concern me more than a death trap. If anyone- _anyone_ found out about it, we could have all types of time disaster on our hands.”

Alex and Winn share a glance.

“We can fix it,” Alex says. “We will fix it.”

“I trust your judgement, Agent Danvers,” Lucy replies. “But I just want the two of you on this. Agent J’onzz is right – paradoxes are more concerning than anyone getting hurt, right now. Only you two get to go in that room, unless they’re supervised by one of us,” Lucy says, motioning to J’onn. “And no time-travelling.

“Yes, Director Lane,” Alex says, Winn copying her a few moments later.

* * *

“How the hell do we fix this?” Alex groans, leaning back in her chair. If not for the death-arch across the room, it would be like any other brain-storming session.

Winn throws a balled-up piece of paper at her head. “We need more data. How much power needs to be used by a de-powered arch? How much power needs to be used by a de-powered arch for travelling an hour back in time versus a day? How much power needs to be used by a de-powered arch for travelling across certain amounts of space? And all that on a powered arch, as well!”

“Lucy said no time travel,” Alex mutters, despite knowing that they need to know these parameters. “We’ve made an unfathomable machine and we don’t know its limits.”

“Like the computer.”

“Like the wheel.”

“Like sandwich flavours.”

Alex looks to Winn, who’s looking at her with a vaguely dirty expression. “There were literally no other sandwiches in the vending machine.”

“Or so you say,” Winn mutters darkly. “I _hate_ pastrami.”

Rolling her eyes, Alex turns in her spinning chair to look at the arch. _No time-travelling…_

“Hey, Winn? Do you think the same thing would happen if we tried teleporting through space alone? No time-travel involved?”

Winn is silent for a moment, then he grins, twisting in his chair to the computer. “Loopholes!”

Sitting up properly, Alex wheels over to look over his shoulder. “So, if we set it to match the home-clock and then…here. No time-travel, no paradoxes. Put me five feet in front of the arch.”

“On it,” Winn says, before stopping, glancing back at her, incredulous. “Wait, what? _You?_ ”

“I don’t like handling animals.” Alex raises an eyebrow, “Are you willing to put a rat through a teleporter and catch it afterwards?”

Winn groans, but looks back to the screen, finishing adjusting the code. “Maybe we could get Kara to go through instead.”

“No. Definitely not,” Alex says, before starting up the arch. The yellow lightning appears and the two of them stare at it for a few seconds. “Do you think it hurts?”

“Don’t know. That’s what you’re about to find out, right?”

“Right,” Alex mutters. “Right.”

_Stand up. It’s just a little teleportation._

Alex gets off her chair, calmly walking over to the arch. The yellow lightning fizzles and pops. It almost hurts her eyes to look at it. As she gets closer, Alex feels static and a deep thrumming in her veins that makes her bones ache.

_It’s just a little teleportation._

_You’ll appear five feet behind you. Five feet._

_No time travel involved._

Taking a deep breath, Alex walks through the lightning-

-and steps out in the middle of the room, Winn’s eyes flickering from the arch to her. Alex stares at him, before the sensations catch up with her.

Groaning, she stumbles back over to her chair, sitting down and reaching over to Winn’s uneaten pastrami sandwich. Taking a bite off the corner, Alex puts it down and reaches for the wastepaper bin, hoping the food will settle her stomach and she won’t throw up.

“Are you going to throw up? What’s teleportation like? Do you feel any negative effects? Did you see anything-”

Alex’s stomach curls and she throws up.

* * *

“It was like walking through a cloud of static, except I felt horrible after rather than electrified,” Alex mutters, simultaneously writing her report of the situation while it’s still fresh. “I was just _bulldozed_ by- by travel sickness or something and I had no time to adjust.”

“I didn’t know you got travel-sick,” Winn says. “Is it like boats or-”

“Flying.” Alex snorts. “Yeah, I know, ironic when I have a sister who gives me a ride every so often and when I jump out of helicopters for a living.” Alex shakes her head, noting down what she can. Really, the report isn’t even half a page long. “I should go to medical, get a check-up.”

“You’ve no baseline so it’d be pointless,” Winn points out. Alex tilts her head in acknowledgement. “Want to try somewhere else?”

Alex glances at him. “I just want to go home.”

“Then go home,” Winn suggests, trying and failing to look innocent. Alex narrows her eyes.

“My car is here. I’ve got to drive to work tomorrow. If it didn’t escape you, we work in a desert.”

“One word: carpool.”

Winn looks at Alex with a _please, please, please ~~let me~~ do this_ face. Alex instinctually wants to ignore it, but in truth, the prospect of teleporting again just makes her feel excited. Her hesitation is the only confirmation Winn apparently needs though, because he calculates the coordinates of her apartment, asking her about any obstacles.

“Uh…just…can you put me in front of my door?”

“That’s clever,” Winn notes, before programming the machine, turning it off and then on again to do so. “Text me immediately after you arrive, okay, so I know you’re alive.”

“I will,” Alex promises, before stepping forwards. As she gets closer, there’s a strange lack of static, however. She wonders if it’s because she’s already been through once before or for another reason. Stepping through, Alex finds herself in her apartment, stepping through and immediately feeling the drain.

Wobbly, Alex staggers to her kitchen sink, in case she feels sick again. However, that ‘travel sick’ feel doesn’t return, so she takes out her phone from her pocket and texts Winn.

**_A: Back at my apartment, safe and sound._ **

Looking at the time on her phone, Alex frowns as she watches it change suddenly, the _23:03_ turning into _00:04_. Looking up at the clock on her wall, Alex sees it’s midnight and has a sudden foreboding. She texts Winn again.

**_A: What did you do?_ **

Watching for Winn’s reply, Alex gets one shortly.

**_W: Sorry, had to check! How was the trip through time?_ **

“Winn!” Alex hisses, before phoning him direct. He picks up and she immediately shouts at him. “What the actual hell, Winn? Lucy said not to! You just defied a direct superior _and_ implicated me!”

“ _What was it like, Alex?_ ” Winn presses.

“Winn!”

He doesn’t let up. “ _You just travelled forwards in time, Alex, c’mon! Was it different? How are you holding up?_ ”

“My legs feel like jelly,” Alex mutters darkly, “but I’m otherwise fine. Did you turn the arch off?”

“ _Ages ago. I’m home and everything. I collected your stuff, by the way, because you forgot it all._ ”

“I did, didn’t I?” Alex mumbles, forcing herself to calm down. “I practically ran through that arch.”

“ _Are you going to report everything?_ ”

Alex sighs.

“ _Alex?_ ”

“…the longer no-one knows, the longer we have full access like this.” Alex rubs her forehead, leaning against her counter-top. “What I don’t understand is how the rats were so drained and I’m just queasy.”

“ _Maybe it burned through energy stores? Fat stores?_ ” Winn suggests. “ _Have you weighed yourself recently?_ ”

“Last week,” Alex says, catching on. “I’ll check it again, just a minute.” Going to her bathroom, Alex turns her scales on, putting her phone on speaker as she sets it down.

“ _So? What’s the verdict?_ ”

“Well, I’ve gained a couple of pounds, apparently,” Alex says, miffed. “Wouldn’t the techies have checked the rats’ weight anyway? They would have mentioned it if something was off.”

“ _Right,_ ” Winn says, sounding embarrassed, before he yawns. “ _I’ll come pick you up tomorrow. What time do you want to get in? Eight?_ ”

“Seven, half past at the latest,” Alex replies.

“ _I am not getting up that early,_ ” Winn denies.

“Yes, you are.” Alex replies, “Or I will sic J’onn on you for making me late.”

“ _Ughhh, I hate you,_ ” Winn moans, before hanging up.


	2. Chapter 2

“-nearly killed him!”

“You’re crazy! You’re _actually crazy_ , Janice-”

“I don’t want her going near Benny ever again!”

“Ruby is _nine!_ I can’t believe you really think a _nine year old_ has the strength to break someone’s arm by bumping it!”

Gently making her way to the front of the crowd of what looked like parents and kids, Alex finds herself seeing two women having an argument, a pale-faced boy with an oddly-bent arm held in a vice-like grip of the blonde and a girl held behind the brunette.

“Excuse me,” she interrupts, concerned for the boy, “but I think you should get- Benny, was it? Get Benny to the emergency room.”

“Stay out of this!” Benny’s mother snaps at Alex, to her surprise.

“Janice,” the girl’s mother hisses, “she’s just trying to help.”

“There’d be nothing to help if your _strange_ girl hadn’t hurt him!” Janice screams.

The other woman looks about to hit Janice and seriously, Alex would _not_ blame her – however, the badge in her jacket burns with justice and Alex takes it out, holding the FBI cover for everyone to see.

“Calm down, now,” she orders, before looking straight at Janice. “Ma’am, your son looks seriously injured. I’m a trained medical professional and I’d like to take a look at him before you take him to the emergency room.”

Janice stiffens at the sight of her badge, but Alex doesn’t wait for her permission, unlatching her arms and leading Benny to a nearby park bench. He stumbles a little and Alex catches him under his armpits.

“Hey, Benny. My name’s Alex. Can you tell me how old you are?” she asks in a quieter voice as he sits. Crouching in front of him, she visually inspects his arm.

“I’m eight,” he slurs.

“Eight, that’s good. You’re a big boy, then, aren’t you?” Benny nods and Alex hums, taking note of his paler pallor. “Benny, can you tell me what happened to your arm and how it hurts?”

“I banged into Ruby,” he says, “she was playing hide and seek with our other friends. I can’t really feel anything, except- except when it moves. I feel sick.”

“Okay, Benny,” Alex replies, looking to his mother, who had followed them over. “Ma’am, do you think you could stay calm enough to phone emergency services?”

Janice crumples and starts to cry over Benny, so Alex takes that as a _no_. Glancing about, she finds Ruby’s mother.

“I’ll call them,” she immediately says, taking out her phone. Alex nods again, looking at Benny and raising her finger.

“Benny, I want you to follow my finger with your eyes, okay? Can you do that for me?” Alex moves her finger back and forth, watching his eyes. To his credit, he tries, but it doesn’t last very long and Alex checks him over for any other injuries. He flinches when she grazes over the back of his head and Alex thinks he might have a concussion.

“Okay.” She speaks quietly, keeping his attention as she moves to the most obvious hurt. Because of his t-shirt and free arm, Alex can see exactly where the bone has come out of the elbow socket, but not where the break is. He starts to breath loudly and heavily when she tries to shift his elbow about, on the verge of a panic attack.

“Benny, I want you to stay very still,” Alex says, leaving his arm be for now. She waits until he calms down to continue speaking. “Try not to move your arm and if you do and feel like you’re going to be sick, shout, so we can make sure you don’t move it more. If you want to cry, that’s fine – it looks like it hurts. Just don’t move it about, okay?”

“Ok,” Benny slurs again, sniffling.

“You’re a very brave boy,” Alex encourages. Standing, she chances a look around, but most of the crowd has dispersed, except a few adults. Finding the girl – Ruby – Alex motions her over, not moving from Benny’s side. Ruby comes slowly and Alex speaks to her quietly.

“Hey, Ruby, is it?”

“Yeah,” she says quietly.

“Do you think you could sit beside Benny and hold his uninjured hand?” Alex leads her over. “Benny’s not okay right now, as you might be able to see and his mom is hysterical – very upset. Do you know what moral support is?”

“Yeah,” Ruby says again, a little more confidently. “I’ll make sure Benny doesn’t feel alone!”

“Right on the mark. If you notice anything about Benny, don’t hesitate to tell us, okay?” Ruby nods, before Janice wails a little too loudly for comfort, so Alex acts, reaching out to take her shoulders.

“Janice, your son is going to be alright eventually, but you need to calm down so you can help him. Is there anyone you want to phone? Does Benny have another parent who needs to know this has happened? Do you need to call your health insurance people?”

Janice hiccoughs, nodding her head. “Ben- Benny’s other mother will want- _need_ to know.”

“Call her, then,” Alex says, keeping her hands on Janice’s shoulder until she’s actually ringing her partner.

“An ambulance is on the way,” Ruby’s mother announces, sounding stressed.

“Good,” Alex says, glancing back at Benny before holding her hand out. “Alex Danvers.”

The woman shakes, “Samantha Arias. I can handle this all if you need to go.”

“I’m on lunch run,” Alex says, checking her watch. “I’ve got time. My boss is pretty lenient and while our canteen is made up of ration packs, the kid is more important in this situation.”

Samantha shakes her head. “Seriously though, I don’t know what happened.”

“Benny said he bumped into Ruby,” Alex shrugs, glancing back at Benny again. “He’s hurt his head too, so perhaps he did something beforehand that he brushed off and the fall knocked things out of place. The sooner that the ambulance gets here, the better.”

On cue, sirens ring faintly in the distance.

* * *

“Alex!”

Laden with take-out, Alex adjusts her load as Kara waves in her superhero regalia.

“Hey, Supergirl,” she greets, before clearing her throat. “Food is here!”

A small swarm of people gather around Alex, collecting their food, passing around various packets and bags. Eventually, Alex is left with her own food and Lucy’s.

“She’s in her office,” J’onn reveals as he opens his teriyaki beef. Sighing, Alex starts walking, Kara joining her shortly.

“So, is the kid okay?”

“He got taken away in an ambulance.” Alex shrugs, “He should be fine.”

“That’s good,” Kara practically inhales a pot-sticker, holding one out for Alex, who gratefully takes it. “So,” Kara says through a mouthful, swallowing, “What’s the thing in the room you were working on? I can hear it buzzing.”

Alex glances over at the Arch, barely visible now the glass walls are replaced with steel and assumedly, lead, if Kara’s asking.

“Classified,” Alex munches on her pot-sticker, entering the corridor leading to Lucy’s office. Kara frowns, inhaling another pot-sticker. “Only Winn and I are allowed inside, unless Director Lane’s with us.”

“Would Lucy let me see?”

“It’s dangerous,” Alex warns. “I’m not kidding. We barely know the effect it has on humans, let alone extraterrestrials. _Don’t_ go investigating.”

“But that’s my job, now!” Kara doesn’t quite manage the whine she was probably hoping for, still full to the gills with excitement at the reporter placement with _The Tribune_ ’s Sebastian ‘Snapper’ Carr she got three months ago. Alex’s lip twitches, before they arrive at Lucy’s office.

Knocking, Alex waits for the faint _enter_ before opening the unlocked door. Lucy sits at her desk, looking exhausted, plenty of paper files piling up in her _IN_ tray to be signed even as she transfers another to her heaving _OUT_ tray.

“Agent Danvers, Supergirl – I smell food,” Lucy says, practically groaning as they approach, Alex taking out her requested eggplant tofu. Helpfully, she hands over a plastic fork as well as Lucy tears the lid off, shoving a report to the side. “You’re a _life-saver_.”

“Just doing my sacred duty,” Alex chuckles a little, watching for a few moments as Lucy gets through a few quick mouthfuls.

“What’s the secret room?” Kara then plainly asks.

Lucy pauses, jaw stilling. She glances at Alex, before straightening her back. “That’s classified, Supergirl. Any attempts to enter will be met with lethal force.”

“ _Lethal force?_ ” Kara questions, shocked. Even Alex raises her eyebrows slightly.

“Lethal force,” Lucy confirms, eyes hard as she points her fork at Kara. “You don’t mention that room to _anyone_ , not any of your relatives – to be specific, the one who flies around in a bright red cape – or to any of your friends, either. Or Cat Grant. This is strictly confidential and if you didn’t have a secret identity to keep, I’d have you signing NDAs.”

“What’s so important-” Kara starts, before Alex interrupts her.

“Supergirl, stop.”

Kara looks between them both, brow crinkling, looking betrayed. Alex keeps a straight face, as does Lucy and _of course_ , Alex thinks, inwardly sighing as Kara crosses her arms defensively.

“What are you hiding?”

“The DEO hides plenty of things, Supergirl,” Lucy says, voice low. “If you were an active agent rather than a consultant, you might be privy to these things. As it stands, what is inside lab three isn’t to be approached or studied except by authorised personnel, so rest assured that very few people know the full truth as to what is inside. You aren’t alone.”

Kara grumbles slightly, but nods, looking down at her feet as she scuffs them against the ground gently. Alex takes the moment to sit down in one of the chairs opposite Lucy, kicking back with her lunch. The atmosphere in the room settles into something less tense as Kara sits as well, Lucy relaxing slightly as she eats – but it’s still slightly oppressive and cloying.

 _It’d be a bad idea to tell Kara about time travel,_ Alex thinks. _She’d want to change the past – go to Krypton and save her parents, do things we don’t know the truth of._

Astra’s death couldn’t be changed with time travel, not safely. Astra died in Kara’s arms, right in front of them both. _Astra’s death is a fixed point_ , Alex thinks, focusing on her broccoli beef. _A fixed point._

Alex tries not to sigh.

_I wish Winn hadn’t made me research time travel._

* * *

“So, where do you want to go tonight?” Winn questions. “Or can I go? Can _I?_ ”

“Sure, so long as you wake up at seven tomorrow morning, so I can drive us both in,” Alex bargains. Winn whimpers, before Alex reaches over to the Arch controls, switching Death Mode off and Jump Mode on. “I want you to send me to three in the afternoon.”

“Three? Back in time…remember to leave your phone here,” Winn advises, “and take your stuff home. But, wait, doesn’t Kara like, keep track of your heartbeat or something?”

“Unless she’s listening for it, it’s background noise – and remember, she can’t hear past this room anymore,” Alex points out. “I’ve been in here with you since I finished lunch with Kara and Lucy.”

“A perfect cover,” Winn surmises. “You’ve only left, what, once for the bathroom?”

“We’re doing it,” Alex decides, standing up to gather her belongings. Winn twists to enter in time-space coordinates, the layout of the console already so different from last week.

They had focused on fixing up a reliable interface for the Arch, aware that while Death Mode was _somewhat_ concerning, they knew that every time either of them entered the coding they could change something that could lead to a hole in the time-space continuum. What work they _have_ done on reversing Death Mode hasn’t worked, in any case.

“You still want to appear in your apartment?”

“In front of the door,” Alex confirms and Winn twists in his chair again to face her. Pulling on her jacket, Alex looks to the Arch again. Nerves twist in her stomach and she wonders if there’ll be that static again from last time.

“Remember, you can’t contact me or anyone who could have seen you here,” Winn warns as she approaches the Arch, the yellow lightning crackling and sparking across the tall struts.

“Got it,” Alex nods, before shutting her eyes and stepping through. Like the last time, there’s a lack of static, but unlike the last time, when she opens her eyes to find herself in her apartment in what is clearly the afternoon versus the evening, Alex doesn’t feel the need to throw up.

 _Good,_ Alex thinks, noting it to herself. _I’ll have to write it down when I go back to the base tomorrow._ But now what is she going to do with her time?

Without permission, Alex finds herself looking at her TV.

“I do have a lot of _Keeping Up With the Kardashians_ to catch up on…”


End file.
